When is a crime not a crime?

On Monday, Suella Braverman published draft guidance designed to rein in the police habit of recording a ‘non-crime hate incident’ (NCHI) against a person’s name whenever someone accuses them of doing something politically incorrect. You may think I’m exaggerating, but in 2017 an NCHI was recorded against Amber Rudd, then the home secretary, after an Oxford professor complained about her references to ‘migrant workers’ in a Tory party conference speech. NCHIs can show up on an enhanced criminal record check even though, by definition, the person hasn’t committed a crime.

The concept first surfaced in guidance published by the College of Policing in 2014 and within five years 119,934 non-crime hate incidents had been recorded by 34 police forces in England and Wales, according to FoI requests submitted by the Telegraph. Nine police forces didn’t respond, but if we assume they were logging NCHIs on the same scale, it’s likely that more than a quarter of a million have been recorded to date.